bassjim

again thanks for all your input. I think the answers easy really and I have to face up to it. Every guitarist I know, Weather they are from a past band or someone depping with us or me depping with another band all have some issue in the closet somewhere but at least they have some pride and self respect for their tone and volume. They have all obviously taken the time to research whats required and how to use it. Suggestions (although fully appreciated) for various positioning of equipment and PA solutions dont hide the fact that I dont have to do it with other guitarists so its just this guy thats letting the side down. As I still want to be gigging regularly and fufill the gigs already booked up to xmas I think my best bet is for now, wait till nearer the time and have a bit of a meeting with the rest of the band with one of those its me or him jobs. Once again thanks every one for all your input as what you say sums up the reality of the situation and confirms my own personal thoughts. It gives me a nice unbiased oppinion as none of you know me or this guy from adam, so I will show the thread to the others!!

learn it. play it. = no dramas. everybody happy. its but 5 mins of your life each time you play it and like all things that get overdone its a crowd pleaser (if played well). when theres something you really want to play/try out you can reach into your moral high ground amunition box and say "well I sorted out sweet child o mine without kicking up". overall its sound practice to learn and play well something you cant stand cause its one of lifes jokes that this will always be what makes the money.

thanks every one for your input. we have tried making suggestions such as positioning of his amp ect. im glad that what you have suggested collectivley is exactly what im thinking so i guess give him till xmas then im gonna have to risk a band fold by addressing it directly. at least i can say ive tried every thing!

yeah i hear you but would you really stroll up to this guy and say "get a new amp and pedals cause you sound sh*t. if you dont youre out the band".... I'm looking for a diplomatic approach before any of that childish nonsence starts

does any one else suffer from this constant anoyance......... so we ( most of us anyway) strive for our own sonic perfection,be what it may, but there is a strong will to seek and find it. tone. good live tone. sometimes we even get close or perhaps ocassionaly ,due to room acoustics, get it perfect. so why is it that the guitarist in my band constantly sounds SH*T. he uses a trace elliot guitar combo with some sort of all in one sound processor for lead sounds. his tone is wide open,tone pot turned up full screechy,often too loud,ear splitting and nasal. when he solos using said processor it sounds like a bee in a jar with no definition of notes. its kinda like here comes the solo and start of bar one = fuzzy bee in a jar till the sudden moment when the sound is turned off. think penumatic drill. its on or its off. i think if we got a three year old in for solos using this same set up there would be no difference. he tells me that no one in the audience can hear this and every one says it sounds great and if anything could be louder! Ive yet to meet these imaginary people. last gig our keyboard player actually had a mid gig melt and told him to "for FU*KS sake turn it down. I look out at the audience and can see them whincing at times. he insists this god awful tone also needs to go through the PA so "they can hear it at the back of the room". Ive have on a regular basis musos and gen public alike say to me "bands sounds great mate.your awsum. guitars a bit loud though. bit screechy. hurts your ears when he ect ect" and things like that. In all my 30 years of semi pro gigging have I ever heard such an awful guitar tone. before you all rush to say "get rid of him" or find another band i would say he can actually play and is a good well learned musician its just the f***ing awful sound he gets. How would you fellow regular weekend warriors approach this potentially Spinal Tap strop of the year. Ive gone down the "have you tried those fender amps.they sound good" and "what do you think of such and such" and sounds really good when you turn the tone/top down but its not getting anywhere......

if i get offered a function gig, with a decent band and the money is good then i will go out of my way to learn anything i dont know and in the keys they want. i probably put more time and effort in than most but the musician in me wants to conquer the gig and keep a good rep. i always get asked back. i'd never embarass myself or the band by not knowing the material. Ive been asked,ive accepted so im gonna deliver. if its a rubbish band,playing music i dont like/know, paying rubbish money i wont take the gig in the first place. i think if you have decided to be a musician for a living and jazz is your main thing then you have to accept what goes with the territory. not learning the material cause the whole set up is "beneath you" and cant be "justified" shows contempt (i think anyway) towards the very people that you are playing with and playing to/at, (IMO). if I have a dep player come in on my regular gig i accept the player might not play every thing 100% but i do expect they have done a reasonable amount of homework. If they stand/sit there casually busking with a view that cause its not enough money ect...... I would question why they accepted the gig in the firstplace. i wouldnt have advertised it as : dep (insert instrument here) required for £50.00/£200.00 gig. its totatly cool if you casually busk your way through,cause lets face it, no one will notice or care. whilst your at it why dont i come and pick you up and take you to and from the gig and provide you with breakfast in bed the following day for your trouble. you poor poor musician. all those hours you put in and all you get is this tiny amount of lolly. sorry folks but if its that bad get a day job!!! (IMO ) of course if its a "can you help out, we need a bass player right now" with no notice then any thing you play well is a bonus and all bets are off.

sorry (this could cause a bit of misery) but i have to throw this one in as well. ..................any time i find myself either depping or in the company of experienced musicians (you know..the others...guitarists and drummers and keys and all of them) that have never seen or heard me before they all seem to have a look of worried to now relaxed "ah....phew...good start...hes got a fender.............." as soon as I get it out of the case. im a bit the same way when i get a guitar dep turn up for a band I play in regularly, and he/she gets a fender strat out. I'm usually thinking to myself ..."ah ...good start......most likely they have done their tone seaking suffering elswhere and will now just get on with it and sound good" and I'm usually right about that one. There are some exceptions and they have proved to be great players but even they tend to have a strat somewhere. yes yes,there are rooms where it all goes out the window no matter what you have in your hands and ok you dont see Mark King (just an example!) using one (although he did once) but across the board in general if you are required to "play the bass" a fender goes a long way................................IMO

very fair enough points all round then. im guessing it comes down to personal experience. personally it all went from super stressy "please god of bass. please please please dont make me look like a complete dick by sounding completley usless and nothing like a bass player on my 3 grand coffee table faced work of art that I have to spend the whole time twiddling and fiddling till it sounds almost like its usable" to " where would you like me to set up? over here? ok. ready when you are". fellow band and audience: "bass sounds really good".ect ect = can now get on with it. i think there could be a small but better quality on the fender deluxe that helps this along...............or maybe its just that me + the fender = what works for me?

late to the party but heres my 2pence worth......... played just about every thing in the past but only when i got a fender did i see that this was what i was looking for all along sound wise. they really come into their own in a band situation as all ready mentioned here. are they overpriced? i can only go by the american deluxe range as i think these are up against the higher priced basses. even here they are a bargain. ie: 2 grand plus vrs approx £1500.00 i think: fender can afford to invest in hanging woods out to dry. they have exactly the right machinery so they consistently get it right. sure there will be some duff ones but these will be less so. every one is ever so slightly different and will need tweaking till its good for you. but thats how they work i think. you get one and get to know it. suss out for your self wjhat needd a tweak and adjust here and there. pick up heights, intonation,string height, neck tension ect. the thing that this range does so well above a lot of other brands is .....WORK. actually work. you want a straight neck? you got it. you want good intonation? you got it. all the parts look basic yet they all work. really well. playable? very very playable.a lot of higher priced instruments often fall short here. i cant of been that unlucky to have owned at least 7-8 high end basses that were all lacking somewhere in the "available adjustments" department. and then of course theres the sound. it is correct and is always correct to the ears of musicians and punters alike. ok you might want something else sound wise or feel wise but get one of these and it will be your bass for life. even if its not needed right now there will always be somewhere down the line you need one. IMO

thanks for your replies so far (andybob09 espsecially) as you have obviously actually done this for real. Any one else thats done this or is right now doing it Id welcome your opinions. For any one that hasnt ; although I appreciate your thoughts on how you would approach it if you were to ect I'm really only looking for the advise of those in the know, or maybe you know someone who has told you all about it. the more feedback from you shippys the better. fanks very muchos

well as the heading says................have you done this and if so would you do it again or would you rather cut your hands off????

The problem here might not be you at all. If this helps try this: get a rehearsal but ask your drummer (nicley at first. hit later ) to play with..................hot rods............the whole rehearsal. Also ask the guitarists as a one off experiment you are allowed to set their volumes and no matter how much they whince and cry about it the deal is......one whole rehearsal you set the volume. the singer is the ONLY person that goes into the pa ( plus if its there) monitors. Providing your rehearsal room isnt a concrete box and has somne carpet in it you should find every one can now hear whats going on. I know its probably very patronising to them and possibly even to you but try it. Whole band sign an agreement that for at least one 2-3 hour rehearsal this is the deal. No pulling discontented faces at you or sarcasticly smiling or any of that immature bullshit .End of. If it all sounds much better cause you can all actually hear whats going on then maybe they could take this one step up and try a gig without every thing on 11. as already mentioned here loud rock guitars eat bass so unless your amp is on the other side of the drum kit away from them and you have some room to spread out its game over before you start. Volume war = noisy mess so your singer can forget about hearing himself if this is the case. Your not playing a stadium so you dont need a stadium volume. if they dont want to know, they are doomed to never getting it together and will always be looking for excuses. start looking for another band and as soon as it looks good jump ship. IMO

i did this years ago when rob first made the necks. It went on a 5 string. I sent the bass to him cause he said he would fit it........ First time round my bass came back with the original wood neck on cause Rob hadn't counted the amount of frets on a five string. He'd kindly rearranged the bridge and tension so the intonation was out and I had to re- tweak the neck. (fair enough the neck but the bridge?? So I get a call that the right neck is now done and off the bass goes. Before i ventured into this I discussed with Rob what it was I was looking for which was : A very stable neck that would help the D and G strings have more presence and apart from that exactly the same neck only in Graphite plus no difference to the sound. When the bass comes back once again Rob has kindly set the bridge saddles in a straight line and raised the action really high so already I have work to do. The neck is actually the Status contour on the back which is great if you like that and even better if you knew that was going to happen. Sound wise it didnt make the D and G any louder through "even responce across the neck" as this was more of a pick up problem. The bass lost a lot of warmth sound wise. Stupidly I called to have a gripe about the above and was told by Rob : " why on earth did you put the graphite neck on if you didnt want the sound to change and of course the necks a different shape. All basses leave here with the bridge set up like that. Actually, when you are earning the sort of money Pino Pallidino is I will take your opinion more seriously but until then I' not interested in what you have to say". Ok so I wont be bothering with a Status bass then. Since then, all that time ago, my money went on several Overwaters and several GB basses before I found out what I was looking for all these years was in a Fender Jazz. Just thought I'd share that experience with you

as soon as ive played the last note,I'm straight onto packing my gear down. Unless I'm a guest,or its been said before hand, me and my gear are in the car and I'm off. Pub or wedding same thing goes. If its really busy and it means fighting your way through a crowd on the post band DJ now on dance floor then obvs you dont want to offend so common sence here but another way to look at is : If the client/ venue/ agencey is paying top dollar whatever they say goes. If they are getting away with paying bottom dollar or you have negotiated a small fee cause its better than not doing the gig then its a massive huge F***em and do whatever you feel you want to do. IMO

ok well thanks for your imput. mrs bassjim knitted me some sort of fingerless mittens. they are like fingerless gloves in so much as they have a thumb but then just one big hole for all four fingers to give more freedom of movement. as they are made for me they fit perfectly. they work pretty well and are still a compromise but better than nothing. i thought id ask around before accepting these are probably my best hope. as some of you say its not just the out doors thats cold. come winter everywhere is cold so next on the list for bass perfection...................hand warm up excersices/techs to help out. new topic i guess

Hi Just got this just over a week ago. Used it on 4 gigs over the bank holiday weekend in 4 different venues. I use a Fender Jazz in passive mode. EBS 350 head 2 x 112 EBS Neo Cabs The thing I like about the above gear for me is.....its simple and sounds great. All of it is very plug and play and even in difficult sounding rooms its easy to suss out whats going to be best on offer. In a good bass friendly room its amazing stuff and makes me very happy. What was missing was a bit of a boost when soloing and in particular slap soloing. I needed to get just above the band a bit during these egotistical moments. On arrival of the pedal I had a quick look at home through a 10 watt practice amp to "check it out". All very simple stuff. Volume. Set your desired volume for boosting your signal or match your volume. Amount of bass boost and amount of treble boost. Plug in and.....Instantly user friendly and that Sadowsky sound is there. Deep bass yet clear (add to taste) and if you want the high end to be "rounder" use less treble or if you want "fizzy" use more. So at home all so far so good. In my experience its what it does up loud with a band going on around you that counts so off to the first gig of the weekend. This pedal has a tuner out BTY which means I could leave the tuner on and use the mute function of the Sadowsky pedal for silent tunning. So get to the gig,set up,turn the volume up to drum loud. plug in,and.................F***me it only actually works!!!!! And I mean really works. "Tonight Matthew I'm gonna be Marcus Miller/ Tal Wilkenfield and just about anyone else that youve heard thats got that sound" Its so good that instead of the use it for solos its stays on all the time. It gives you that extra bit of authority without taking any clarity away. Now I have effectivley a passive and active bass all in one. Ive owned a Sadowsky Metro bass before but it didnt play as well as my Fender so this is yet another bonus. Adverts are keen to tell us what we want to hear and the amount of times I've been disappointed with bass related products is.....well a lot. If you want to get closer to the above artists tone plus a whole other range of bringing out the best in your playing this is for you. If you play in some grungy punky thing where this doesnt matter then obvs you dont need to spend your cash here. best £200.00 ive spent in a long long time

this weekend i have four gigs fri,sat,sun and monday. two are out side because the venues have decided what with it being august and sunny this time of year they are having an outdoor affair. both venues are small pubs with nice big gardens so going inside is out the question. ive just checked the weather and if its not raining its cold or cold and raining. joy. there will be a marquee put up at both venues but cant see lots of punters getting into cold muddy wet glasto vibe field. how i love england this time of year. this reminds me that soon our glorious summer will end and its back to cold hands time of year. i find it impossible to get my bass mojo working when my hands are freezing at the best of times so wondered what you other giggers do to get your hands warmed up at gigs and keep em like that?

oh yes..............a good player surrounded by the not so good,the way to loud and the inexperienced is doomed as far as getting the best out of it unless you like just playing the e string only............imo

as a rule of thumb (90% of the time) on a passive jazz : at home tone off in a small 10 watt practice amp for working out things and practice in general. at the gig tone wide open. bass amp eq changes every different venue plus changes along the way depending on how busy,empty,loud,quiet,carpet,no carpet,curtains,no curtains,stone floor ect ect ect. sometimes nothing you can do, due to bad bass acoustics, other than turn the volume up and hope no one you know sees you. sods law usually dictates the gig where every thing is amazingly perfect and its the best bass sound in the world and how you wish you could,just for once be seen and heard, its empty cause the venue is an ex criminal underworld hangout and no one in their right mind will go there. ever. bass eq: so far i have come to the following conclusion (30 years playing pubs,clubs,weddings,parties,corparate ect. 6 months total as pro in signed band. this is my personal conclusion so please take what you want that could help and disregard any thing you disagree with.not trying to start an "im an expert so listen to me" kinda thing at all.) to lessen the impact of getting a rubbish sound on a regular basis: I have found; use the same manufacture for cabs and bass head.mixing this head with that cab usually means you dont get the whole picture that THAT manufacture wants you to get. sadly its true that the more you spend the better it gets and cheap light weight stuff is usually full of compromise. if you dont understand the eq section it may be the wrong amp for you. just because matey down the road likes it, it doesnt mean it will work wonders for you. if you find something that works then stick with it. i have always changed my strings for a gig cause they sound good straight away (well 96% of the time). just this alone stops a lot of fiddling happening. Everything tone wise changes a lot from quiet to loud. a lot. you can do that polite sound check where every one is on their best behaviour yet when the gig actually starts .....boom.... first out the trap its gitard and his amazing sound processor frequency eating sh**board closely followed by the amazing left spiderhand of the keyboard player which triggers an instant animal from the muppets on drums = vocals? what vocals?..... and your good eqd sound has just been blown out the water so its back to fiddling on the fly. an extreme example but this is what to look out for. and just when you think you've sussed it.....that really bad one gig comes along and now youve got GAS.................again. set the eq flat. work out what needs to be added and taken away. like riding a bike every one can give advise but ultimatley only you can learn how to ride it all by your self. wheelies and speed come with practice and even then just cause you can you might feel a bit of a prick doing it down the middle of a pedestrian shopping centre. (or maybe you dont) like i said folks.....its my personal view so far.

i agree with all that everyone says about set lists but here is some more problems that i find when wanting to go somewhere interesting. i play in a disco funk covers band and the set list consists of mostly the easy stuff to play because..... 1st problem is the singers range. some things sound f***ing awful when you change he key dramatically so snookered here but the main problem i have is... the rest of the band either idividually or collectivley just dont have the musicianship required. as most of the music is bass led the guitarist is the usually the first to come out with "that wont work cause..." followed by the keys player. IMO its because they find it as boring to play a "supportive " roll to me as I find it boring to be playing a "G" note for the next 5 mins whilst the guitarist goes off on yet another face pulling oddysey in a rock band. they are in it more for the cash than the music so its a case of accepting at least its regular gigging till the right people come along. In past bands with better players doing a mixture of everything we did something we liked every 4-5 tunes and it worked well on a regular crowd but i think playing covers has to be looked at like doing an adult nursery school sing a long..........if its too obscure or complicated they dont know whats going on and lose interest. bunch of muppets!!! (them ,not us )

there are some songs that no matter how hard you try they sound SH** if you change the key. Its because in the original key the player goes for what sounds best using what notes are strongest.(you know this anyway!!) in said song I have dropped the E to a D to play this a tone down.That works. I too have tried it in other keys and cause apart from these two, I'm with you there; its doesnt work any other way unless the whole band change the approach.(and then this is only if the other band members are good enough musicians capable of doing so) Its loses its balls and identity if you want to stay true as poss to the original. its not just you that sounds rubbish as a result but the whole band. Its embarising and depressing when you get this. If all can agree : drop the tune or get another singer. No you're not being a diva. You can hold up your end of the deal and its not you causing the problem. If the singer is mature enough musically speaking they will happily look at something else?

im playing tonite at the albert in eastbourne. its not near the seafront though. funk and soul covers with a band called innersoul collective. uses various musicians depending on whos available. usually a good gig. playing from about 10 pm till 1 am

[email="[email protected]"][email protected][/email] have you tried this one?

i had one of these and its a great amp. its probably better than most of the recent stuff. as its not in keeping with MBs latest idears and out of fashion with MB I would say £250.00-£300.00 would be a fair price. Looking at the MB website it would seem every 5 minutes theres' something new and something discontinued.I think they are trying to re-invent the wheel as I find the old SA450 still sounds great and its debatable just how much better its current counter part is (IMO) Ive moved over to EBS gear and have a Reidmar as a back up light weight amp but I would be tempted to get one of these as a preferable back up if the price was right